Page Four CLOUDBUSTER Saturday, February 19, 1944 Corsairs and Hellcats Destroy Jap Planes at Better Than 5-to-l Ratio The Navy’s two new fighter*^ planes—^the Vought Corsair and the Grumman Hellcat—are com piling fine records in the Pacific, the Navy Department announced last week. The “Terrible Twins,” as they have been dubbed by the Fleet’s aviators, in 1943 destroyed 884 enemy warplanes, at a loss of 170, thereby improving the five-to-one ratio which Navy and Marine Corps flyers have maintained since the beginning of the war. Making its debut in February, 1943, the Pratt and Whitney pow ered Corsair, completed the year with a record of 584 Jap planes shot down or blasted to bits on the ground. Only 108 Corsairs were lost, with a large number of their pilots being rescued. The Hellcat made its bow dur ing the carrier task force raid on Marcus Island, Sept. 1, 1943, but did not meet any substantial enemy aerial opposition until the Wake Island raid a month later. From then until the year-end, the Hellcat—also Pratt and Whitney- powered—put 300 enemy craft out of the fight. Only 62 Hellcats were lost, and many of the pilots rescued. The item of enemy planes de stroyed provides only part of the record achieved, for in almost every action of the current Pacific offensive, one or the other, or both of these six-gun, 400-mile-an-hour fighters viciously strafed the Jap island objectives—Marcus, Wake, Nauru, Tarawa, the Marshalls, Bougainville. This strafing devastated a va riety of installations—^barracks, fuel and supply dumps, troop con centrations, radio stations, troop and supply barges. The Corsair and Hellcat have divided the fighter burden, the Hellcats operating from carriers with Navy pilots at the controls, and the Corsairs from land bases with, in most instances. Marine flyers as pilots. Both, however, can operate from either ship or land bases. Scores of published reports on Hellcat and Corsair accomplish ments give conclusive evidence that these two planes are the an swer to the vaunted Jap Zero. Both planes mount six .50 cali ber machine guns, and are capable of top speeds above 400 miles an hour, ceilings over 35,000 feet, and range of over 1,500 miles. OFFENSIVE (Continued from page one) available, particularly planes and ships, for a major effort against the Japanese. The decline of the U-Boat menace and the virtual elimination of the Axis navies in Europe have made possible a great concentration of naval strength in the Pacific. And the use of this strength is in line with President Roosevelt’s policy of hitting the enemy “everywhere at once.” The rapid conquest ef the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshalls was also a brilliant justification for the campaign of attrition which we haye waged in the Paci fic for a year and a half. Neither the Solomons nor New Guinea is of tremendous importance in itself. Yet these islands have served as- battlefields on which the Japanese have been forced to expend valu able material of war. The Marshalls campaign si lenced the dire prophecies of a tedious “island-by-island” strat egy in the Pacific. In one bold stroke our forces moved more than five hundred miles from newly- won positions in the Gilbert Is lands. Important Jap positions at ,Wotje and Jaluit were by-passed in favor of the dominating Kwa jalein Atoll. The garrisons on these lesser islands are now un der siege by sea and air. It is also debatable whether Wake Island, now an important base in the Jap air-supply system, can hold out against pressure that can be brought to bear upon it from Kwajalein. The general public always exaggerated the significance of Japan’s “thousands of unsinkable aircraft carriers” as their island bases were known. Japanese re sources never permitted the de fense of all their islands. If Japa nese strategists attempt to de fend the maximum number of is lands they will be preparing only the piecemeal defeat of the Im perial forces. This policy would scatter the defenders and make a concentration of the attackers even more effective. Not every island is important, either for the enemy or for us. The criterion of an island’s value is its useful ness as an air base. We are con quering islands only that our air power may be brought nearer the heart of Japan’s empire. To these strategic conclusions The Wolf by Sansone Copjrrifhr 1944 by U^